Touch
by idon'tedit
Summary: On hiatus. A story of Ned and a girl with the inverse of his gift named Letty. The plot of Pushing Dasies exists how it was up until episode nine in season two. This story unfolds a year after the deviation of Chuck leaving with her father when he asks her to. WIP. OFC.
1. Chapter 1

_**Song for this chapter: Maybe I'm Just Tired by As Tall As Lions**_

* * *

_The town of Coeur d'Coeurs had a secret with many layers. Some of those layers, like a flower, were blossoming out and being discovered by friends and family, and others like roots remained hidden below the surface. The brightest piece of the secret, that it seemed that one day perhaps everyone in the town would know with the way it grew, was the powers that were possessed by one Ned the pie maker. In layers below those remained the secret of the powers that had belonged to his father. Deeper yet, and the least likely it seemed to ever be discovered was the secret of the girl born on the same day, at the same time, but on opposite sides of the ward with an entirely different mother that was strikingly similar to Ned's father. Her name was Collettte but she went by Letty, and much like she had been on the opposite side of the ward her powers fell on the opposite side of the coin. _

_Ned the pie maker had been blessed with a gift that allowed him to touch what was dead and bring it back to life. He did not learn that he was in possession of this gift until he was nine years twenty-seven weeks six days and three minutes old, or otherwise known as the first moment that he touched something that was dead._

_Letty had been given something she was hesitant to call a gift in which she could touch something that was living and make it dead. Letty knew from the moment that she could truly formulate thought that there was something not quite right about her, and in her young life she did in fact make several things stop living without knowing what it was she had done, but it was not until she was nine year twenty-seven weeks six days and three minutes old that she understood that it was the touch of her hand that had made her friend Matti something other than living._

_That moment had been traumatic for young Letty, though many adults had assured her that she should not feel such guilt over the sudden and unexpected death of her dear friend. It was in fact the last moment that Letty willingly touched another human being or animal. She hated to see them wither, but it would not be the last time she touched a plant. Sometimes it simply was not possible to avoid stepping in grass or to keep a leaf from blowing off a tree and onto her flesh. Though she made painstaking efforts to keep as much of her flesh covered as possible. She would have taken to wearing some sort of mask over her face to keep others safe, but that did tend to make people nervous._

_People themselves made Letty altogether nervous. She was not accustomed to being around them, and her dear mother thought that Letty was just shy. That was not the case however. Letty still had her mother, despite having been touched by her, because of one of the stipulations that came with her gift. If Letty waited longer than sixty seconds to touch something she had made no longer alive it would stay dead, but if she were to touch that same person or thing again they would come back to life and they would stay alive forever. Letty had only recently begun to suspect that it also suspended the aging process. As her mother did not appear to have aged a single day and yet Letty had aged by eighteen years at her side._

_You see Letty's mother had in fact died the same day that Letty had been born. Somehow the dear woman had been protected from her daughters gift during gestation and birth, but when she was allowed to hold her child after giving birth she immediately capitulated to the circumstances and fell dead right there in her hospital bed. This caused newly born Letty to slip from her mother's arms and fall to her lap, and had it not been for the way she fell upon her mother's hand the woman would have stayed not alive, but Letty inadvertently touched her for a second time and brought her mother back to life forever. Anyone watching thought the weary mother had temporarily given in to her exhaustion and rushed to collect the squalling child, and luck for them they were gloves._

_Letty's father had not had such a lucky fate. Later that evening he had gone to pick Letty up from the little plastic basinet that had been wheeled into her mother's hospital room and he had quickly fallen to the floor. The doctors told his distraught wife that her husband had died of natural causes, and she put on a brave face as she took her tiny child home with her._

_Letty and her mother had been in for an adventure from the very first as it appeared that she was allergic to every food that her mother could think of. Letty had come to know in time that she could not tolerate the food her mother was giving her because it began to die the moment she placed it in her mouth, but for years it just seemed that she was the fussiest eater with the worlds most sensitive stomach. Letty was taken to many doctors to try and discover what was wrong with her and her sensitive digestive tract, and she was spared the trauma of numerous doctors falling dead around her by their propensity to wear gloves whenever they interacted with their patients._

_It had taken years of experimentation and frankly just giving in on the part of Letty's mother to come up with a diet that at least kept her partially satisfied. Letty could stomach water, though frankly she thought it tasted awful and made her stomach a bit sour after she had consumed it, but it at least did not make her violently ill. She much preferred sodas, that comprised almost entirely of sugar and synthetic chemicals could not give her much trouble while working it's way through her system. Food was something more difficult for her. She could handle straight sugar, and some candies that really didn't contain much else other than sugar. She could eat cheese whiz as it seemed to be nothing but chemical, but not that crackers that other people seemed to enjoy with it. There were a few things on the menu at the local fast food restaurant that she could at least keep down even if they did taste a bit musty and make her stomach cramp. There was one other thing that Letty could eat, though she did not share it with her mother, and that was bugs._

_Needless to say Letty was a very small girl who was never completely full and who had what was likely an unhealthy relationship with toothpaste. Both Letty and her mother were very concerned that her diet of primarily sugar would rot her teeth right out of her head, especially since she could not drink milk to help make her strong, so Letty brushed her teeth after anything passed through her lips. She did like the minty taste of the paste enough to tolerate the stale and musky taste of water on her tongue. She wondered for years if water tasted like that to everyone, but after the incident with Matti she was sure it didn't._

_Letty did not make friends after Matti and kept to herself at any time that she was not with her mother. It was troublesome to her mother. First she thought her child had been emotionally damaged by the death of her father. Then she thought her daughter had a serious eating disorder and perhaps other psychological issues that made her unable to live life. Her mother stayed faithfully by her side right up until the moment that Letty graduated high school, then she could take her daughter's strangeness no longer and she left her._

_The day after she walked in cap and gown Letty woke to an empty house with a note on the table informing her that the house was paid for and that Letty could call it her own, but that she would need a job to pay for everything else she needed. It told her that her mother just did not feel like a mother and that she had to go away and she did not believe she would ever be able to come back. She wished Letty well and told her that there was a brand new box of cola in the fridge for her. That note had marked the beginning of many things for her, but it also marked the end of one thing for Letty. Touch. Her mother had kissed her forehead after she received her diploma at the age of eighteen years seven months three weeks three days and twelve minutes and that was the last time that she could remember being touched or touching another._

_In order to cope with the sudden and striking change in her life Letty developed a tightly wound system to make her life work. She wore enough clothing to keep her covered, from long socks to a wide array of gloves to thick scarves the only part of her left uncovered was her face. She did not leave the house unless it was absolutely necessary. She used an online service to order her limited array of groceries, and to find a job as a funeral home assistant._

_It had seemed to be a brilliant idea at the time, and she managed to put in many years of service at the local funeral parlor for a man named Lawrence Shatz without incident. She remained below the floors, working in the funeral homes preparation room with the recently deceased. These were the only bodies that Letty could touch without consequence, and while it was a relief to touch something without killing it, she took no comfort from their companionship as she prepared them to be put even further below the ground than they were when they were with her. _

_She had cultivated a wide distance between herself and the living world. She did not speak with others other than a quick nod when her employer brought her a new body to prepare for a funeral. She did not operate under hours that would put her in close proximity with living people as she left for work early in the morning and stayed late into the night leaving her out on the street when there were very few people about. Her payment from her employer, her banking, and her payment of any fees for utilities or groceries were all handled digitally. Any issues were typically solved by a phone call. The system worked for her right up until the day her employer, who frankly she knew nothing about, had inexplicably fallen dead before the funeral of a young woman that Letty had known only long enough to curl her hair and apply makeup to her eternally resting face._

_Because of his death Letty was thrown into the very uncomfortable position of having to speak with his grieving family and gather the information of how they wished for him to be prepared for death herself, a task that had always been done for her. It had been agreed upon that seeing the mortician would be upsetting to the family by both Letty and Lawrence, so she was shocked to be confronted by a situation where she had to speak to his mother about how to prepare him for his own funeral. She had been even less prepared to deal with the sudden upswing in the woman's grief that had caused her to reach out and hug Letty. It had been terribly lucky that she'd had so many layers on, and that she had managed to move her face away from the woman so quickly or the dear woman would have gone the way of her son rather quickly. So that unexpected touch that took place when she was twenty-eight years two months one week and sixteen days old was her very last, and it was the reason that she walked away from being a mortician and opened her own business that was fulfilled primarily by mail order services though she did have a shop front downtown with an apartment just above it that she began to reside in._

_She sold her mother's house and used it to pay for the training she needed to become a taxidermist, to purchase her shop space and apartment, and to set up her new life where she truly became a shut in. Occasionally she would receive a hunter or an owner of a recently deceased pet that came in to the shop to speak with her before she set to work preserving the lost animal but it was rare, and attempts to hug her became nonexistent. There was something offsetting about a person that pieced dead things back together and she was ever so grateful for that because it allowed her to cultivate a much larger gap between her and other people who might unwisely attempt to touch her and suddenly end their own lives inadvertently. So she took mail orders and she stayed inside._

_Safely tucked away from the potential for danger she allowed herself to cultivate other things in her life. She developed a love of gardening, and though she had to be tediously careful, and don her gloves once more, she managed to keep all of her plants alive. She loved to be surrounded by living things, even if it meant that she could not go near her own windows without first putting on layers of protective elements to do so. She also began to allow herself one small comfort in which she left her home without worry of hurting another. When it was late and the world had gone to sleep she would go outside, and without gloves or a scarf she would soak in the moon light and allow herself to stretch out and occupy the full amount of space that her small body should fill rather than scrunching in on herself and attempting to make herself small._

_Those small freedoms did not mean that she suddenly wore clothing that exposed her arms and the threat that came with them. They didn't mean that she was going to run out in the middle of the day because her hungry stomach was begging her for something more substantial than the sugary things she kept in her house. No those weakened runs for processed fast food meat patties still happened late at night with gloves firmly in place, but she did not feel choked by her own existence because of those little pleasures she allowed herself._

_Her life was carefully planned, and though it was not an unhappy life, she admittedly did not smile much. There were not unexpected occurrences in her life because she did not leave room for them. Everything was tightly wound so as not to leave room for surprises. She had the things in her world that she knew everything about, and the things outside of her life that she never thought on or questioned._

_One of those things outside of her life that she did not know of was wound just as tightly. It was Ned the pie maker who in fact lived just a few hundred feet from her across the street and above a shop called the Pie Hole that she had never had reason to visit, much like he had never had reason to visit the shop front with plain black font labeling it as Professional Taxidermy Services._

_Ned's life had crossed very closely to hers when he used his own gift to bring back the girl with the curled hair and the subtle makeup in trade of the life of her former employer but they had managed not to meet. Through his adventures with the girl that should be dead but was known as Chuck he continued not to meet Letty. The two did not cross paths when Chuck and Ned went through adventures with their detective friend named Emerson. They did not meet while Olive the waitress pursued him, and they did not meet when Ned brought back Chuck's father._

_They likely should have met the night that Chuck decided to follow her father wherever the spoon fell and left Ned behind with his pie shop and the waitress that he did not want, but they did not. Instead they stood in the snow, on the same street, late in the night, but they did not meet one another. Ned had been beside his shop, letting the show fall down on him as he lamented the loss of the woman he loved to the man he had once killed, and Letty had stood in the snow with her hands exposed and feeling the precious flakes fall into them while she enjoyed the quiet of the night and the feeling of freedom that came with the idea that she was entirely alone out in the open. She'd lost that feeling when she had caught a glimpse of the pie maker out of the corner of her eye, but she did not meet him, no she fled back to her home to protect him from the threat she considered herself to be._

* * *

Letty and Ned managed to go thirty years four months two weeks and one day without meeting, but then they did. They met under sad circumstances, as was usually the case when someone brought Letty a pet, but something felt different to her when this tall yet somehow small man brought her a small covered body that she suspected would turn out to be a dog.

"Hello sir," she said quietly, not at all surprised by how soft her voice had become in disuse. She wasn't sure the last time she had spoken out loud, last week perhaps? "How might I help you today?"

"I feel silly even coming here," he said in a sad voice as he pushed the little cart with the covered body over to her. "I've never been one to consider taxidermy for a pet. In fact I have a friend who does taxidermy and I ridiculed him for the way he preserved his own golden retriever in a garish and inappropriate pose with a guitar no less. But Digby… well Digby has been with me for so many years. He's been my only companion, and I can't seem to just let him go."

Letty saw that there was such sadness in his gaze when he spoke of Digby, and in fact something that she thought looked a lot like guilt. She wondered how Digby had passed but she was hesitant to ask any questions when he seemed so distressed. She drew a quiet breath when she knew she would have to ask him the pertinent questions.

"So you have decided that you'd like to preserve him," she said with a nod and a soft smile. "Did his passing leave him in disrepair?"

"No he's in fairly good condition all things considered," Ned said, his eyes lingering on the off white sheet that covered Digby. "It would appear to be natural causes."

Again she noticed how sad he sounded about that, but she was distracted from further thought on that by him pulling the sheet away to reveal the golden retriever that looked as if it were sleeping on the cart and large dog bed it had been placed on. He obviously loved his dog very much and Letty found herself very sad by the prospect of this dog being dead.

"So we will want to put him in a respectable pose of course," she said quietly as she came around her desk, careful to keep a large distance between herself and the customer while she drew closer to the dog. "There are a few options, but I wonder what you would like best."

She waited, to see if he would tell her what he wanted. If he knew what he wanted. She waited a full thirty seconds but he said nothing, only stared at his dead dog with a face that broke her heart with surprising efficiency.

"I could pose him so he appears to sit and look up at you," she suggested. "Or lying as dogs are wont to do at the feet of their person? Or perhaps I ought to pose him as if he were asleep so it would seem the most natural of all. Do you know what you'd like?"

He met her gaze then and his eyes seemed tortured. For the first time since her mother had left her she actually found that she wanted to touch someone. Not for her own comfort but for his. She wanted to draw his hands out of where they were stowed in his pockets and lean into his hunched frame as she offered a comforting hug, but that was not something she could ever do. Instead she quickly slid gloves onto her exposed hands incase he reached out for any reason, and then she reached down to brush her fingers lightly over the ear of the dog that really could be sleeping for how he looked.

"You don't seem at all bothered with the prospect of touching something that has died," he said so quietly she almost couldn't hear him. "I should have expected it really, but even Randy hesitates when he first encounters a new animal."

"Death is a natural part of the human condition," she said, voicing the one sentence that could comfort her when she thought of her friend Matti or wondered if she had been the cause of her own father's death. "I'm sorry if my lack of hesitance made me seem uncaring. I am very sorry for your loss sir. I just want to do right by you and Digby."

Their eyes met again. Hers were contrite, and his were pained. She didn't like the way his brows drew together and it looked like he might cry, though his eyes remained dry. She found herself staring at those blue eyes, and that was probably why she didn't notice that he seemed fascinated by her dark brown eyes looking at him in such an open way. She wasn't aware that her amazement at actually feeling a human connection for the first time in years was written all over her face. She couldn't know that her open face that lacked any artifice or judgment was exactly what Ned had needed in that moment.

"Would you pose him so it looks like he has curled up and gone to sleep?" he asked finally, his voice sure despite his emotional face.

"Yes of course," she said with a polite nod as she stood back and put distance between herself and the dog just in time to avoid him reaching out to scratch behind the ear she had been touching just seconds before. "Would you like me to call you when I have finished… or would you like me to ship the finished project to you?"

"I'm just across the street at the Pie Hole," he said as he stood and backed away from the dog as well. "It should be easiest to just place a phone call and I will come over to pay you for your services and retrieve Digby."

"Oh, okay," she said somewhat dumbly wondering if this was the man she had caught a glimpse of out of the corner of her eye nearly a year ago when she'd been out enjoying her time in the snow. "It shouldn't take me more than a week."

"I suppose I'll hear from you soon then," he said with a succinct nod before he turned on the heel of his Chuck Taylors and swept out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Letty was left wondering how a man so tall as he could appear to occupy such a small amount of space and wondered if that was the impression she would give other people as well… if she were to allow herself to be around people of course. In reality that short conversation was the most social interaction she'd had in ages and it both invigorated and exhausted her. She took a seat with a tired plop and stared at the dog in front of her, wondering if it was going to bring trouble to her carefully constructed world.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Song for this chapter: Shine by Anna Nalick**_

* * *

Letty could have finished all of her duties as a taxidermist to prepare this golden retriever named Digby to look like he was curled on a pillow sleeping for the rest of time rather quickly, but she used nearly all of the weeks time line she had given to Ned the pie maker as she felt it necessary to be very delicate with this dog that had clearly been loved so dearly. That was not to say that none of the pets that were brought to her by other owners had not been loved dearly, but there had been something in Ned's eyes when he had spoke to her that told her Digby had been more dear than any pet had ever been. She got the impression that Digby had been everything to Ned and she found herself lost in sad imaginings in which Ned returned to his lonely apartment above his business and spoke to his dog about how his day had gone.

She imagined them going to for walks in the park together while she painstakingly stuffed and arranged to the limbs of the deceased dog. She had thoughts of him spilling his sad thoughts about being alone to Digby while she herself placed painstaking hidden stitches on the now gone dog. She imagined a world for the human and the dog that was entirely depressing, so much so that she found herself crying on the dog when she had finally finished, and she was not at all ready to give him back just yet.

It had taken a day, and two instances of holding a cup of tea in her hand and breathing in the soothing sent to calm her emotions for her to convince herself that the world she had created in her mind was unlikely to be real. When she had finally allowed herself to believe that the sadness that she had seen had been only because the man had lost a pet and not because he had lost his only friend in the world she admitted out loud that she had finished. She dumped her latest cup of unconsumed tea down the kitchen sink and she went down into the little room that made up her shop front and took up the phone to call her customer. He picked up after one ring.

"Pie Holes, how may I help you," his deep voice said over the line and inexplicably she found herself smiling at the fact that he sounded so much happier than when he had been in her shop last.

"Hello, this is Letty from Professional Taxidermy Services," she said quietly. "I was calling to let you know that I had finished and Digby is ready for pickup when you are."

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds where she listened to him breathe.

"Thank you for calling," he said finally, and her smile died when she heard that he sounded sad again, maybe it was her making him sad she thought. "We're a bit busy at the moment but I think I could make it over in about twenty minutes. How much will I owe you?"

"I'm not going to charge you," she said without thinking, but it rang true none-the-less.

"Surely you must, your services must be rather expensive what with the cost of materials and all that," he said, some of the sadness taken out of his voice by his confusion.

"It's really no trouble," she argued kindly. "There was just something very kind about Digby even in his resting state. It didn't feel like work, so it doesn't feel right to charge you."

She refrained from mentioning that she had considered touching him without gloves. It was something she rarely did, despite the fact that she could not hurt these dead animals, but she had been tempted with Digby. His fur had felt so soft through the latex and then there had been the sadness she had felt when working with him. She had been sorely tempted to remove her gloves and scratch behind his ears but she had resisted.

"If you are certain," he said softly, drawing her out of her reverie.

"I am," she said, and she nodded even if he could not see her do so through the phone.

"Alright, I'll be over as soon as I am able," he said quietly. "Thank you Letty."

"I'll see you in a bit Ned," she said and then she replaced the phone on its cradle.

* * *

Letty had remained sitting in her shop waiting for him, but it had taken quite a bit longer than twenty minutes for Ned to come over. She had gone from sitting patiently at her desk, to watering her many plants, to organizing papers that did not need organizing while she waited for him. She checked her watch and saw that she had been waiting for two hours, and wandered over to the window to peek over at the Pie Hole where she saw that business seemed to be hopping for Ned.

Rather than get started on another project she stood at her window and she watched customers flow in and out of his business while she waited. As another hour passed the number of people she was seeing slowly began to dwindle, but so did her interest in people watching. So she returned to her desk to wait patiently for Ned, and again resisted the urge to pet the dog with her bare hands.

Instead she removed her gloves and began to apply a deep conditioning lotion to her hands to fill her time. Wearing gloves as often as she did her hands tended to get a bit dry, and she figured she might as well do something about how dry they were feeling today while she waited for business to slow enough for Ned to come and pick up Digby. It was because of this that she found herself sitting in her shop with her hands fully exposed when Ned came in, and she found herself in dangerous proximity to a human without protecting them from her deadly touch out of pure surprise.

She jumped up out of her chair with the intention of getting as far away from him as she could when she realized that he was reaching out for his dog. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest when the heel of her foot caught on the leg of her rolling desk chair. She felt herself falling and time seemed to slow down as she saw Ned's eyes alight with concern and he lunged out to try and catch her.

A screeching sound loosed itself from her throat as she pulled her arms into her chest, tucking her hands into the neck of her shirt to cover them and attempted to throw herself away from him despite the way gravity was already pulling her. She did manage to change the course her fall enough for his first lunge to miss her, but she had not accounted for Ned's long and lithe frame. A huffed cry of surprise erupted from her when his left hand grabbed one of the arms crossed over her chest and his right cupped her behind her head. She could feel the heat of his hand on the bare skin of her neck and it felt like her world was going to implode on her but he just released a huff of air as he scooped her up and kept her from crashing into the floor as he pressed her against his body for a moment before righting her on her feet and stepping away.

"Are you alright?" he asked quickly, though he didn't leave time for her to answer. "Why in the world did you fold your arms up like that instead of letting me catch you?"

"Y-you're alive," Letty gasped as her hand jumped up to touch her neck where his hand had been. "But you touched me…"

"Yes I'm alive," he said, his brow contorting with confusion. "I'm sorry if it was upsetting that I touched you. I didn't realize you were adverse to contact, though I suppose I should have with the way you folded your arms like that."

"This is going to sound crazy, I can't believe I'm saying it," she said, terrified that she had only imagined his contact on her neck and that she was about to do something horrible. "But could you touch my hand. Just for a second."

She stuck her hand out into the space between the two of them, painfully aware of the fact that she was not wearing a glove. She was torn between wanting him to touch her hand so she would know if she had imagined it, and desperately not wanting him to because it broke all of her structure and because this strange phenomenon might stop and she might kill him. His eyes looked lost confused but he reached out and he placed his fingers somewhat awkwardly on the palm of her hand for a moment before withdrawing. He didn't fall over dead. His breathing didn't even falter. He seemed completely fine. Letty felt like she might burst into tears of sheer relief.

"Still alive," he said with a crooked smile when she remained silent, staring at him. "Look I'm not sure what just happened. Are you alright? Did you still manage to hit your head while I was trying to catch you? How many fingers am I holding up?"

Letty admittedly had a little trouble seeing how many fingers he was holding up, but it was because her eyes were misting up with relieved tears, not because she had sustained a head injury.

"Two," she told him in a wobbly voice that embarrassed her and she looked away from him.

"Now I've made you cry," he said, his voice so genuine in its concern that she had to look back. "I'm sorry. This has become a real mess."

"Everything is fine Ned. I'm sorry for making such a scene," she said in a shaky voice as she wiped at the tears that had started to fall. "It's just been a very long time since someone has touched me. It startled me. Everything is fine though really. I promise."

He didn't look at all convinced, but he seemed to understand that leaving would be best. Or perhaps he felt so uncomfortable that he just wanted to get out of there, she couldn't be sure. But Ned took hold of the handle on the cart that he had wheeled Digby in on a week ago and prepared to depart.

"I've made a mess of this. I really feel I ought to pay you for what you did," he said quietly.

"I've made the mess," she said with a dismissive wave. "I'd actually be offended if you paid me at this point. Please, just take him and go I'll be fine here."

Ned spared her one last concerned glance and then he tugged Digby behind him as he left. Letty waited a few seconds after the door was closed before hurrying over to lock it and turn the open side to closed. She then turned her gaze on the little clump of lavender she had growing by the door and she began to wonder. Had this curse finally left her? Could she have a life now? Should she test that idea right now on this plant?

She couldn't bring herself to do it. No, if it was suddenly gone, she wanted the first thing that she willingly did curse free to be special. She wanted to do something that would be special to her, but that would likely be rather boring to someone else. Upstairs in the kitchen she had an apple. She had gotten it with her groceries with the intention of cutting it apart and enjoying the scent one night while reading, but today she wanted to eat it. That would be the best rebirth into the world of normal people, to sit down and enjoy an apple, like a normal person.

So it was that she ran up the stairs from her business to her apartment. She ignored everything else as she went straight to where that bright green apple sat on her kitchen table. She did not bother with putting on a pair of gloves as she snatched it up in her hand and she had a fraction of a second to enjoy the sensation of the firm green skin of it on the palm of her hand before it all went belly up. The apple went soft in her hand and the color slowly warped from bright green to a dirty brown and her nose filled with the smell of rot. With a cry of disgust she threw the apple in the waste bin and scanned her apartment with tear filled eyes again.

"No, this can't be right," she whispered to herself as she all but staggered over to sit at the kitchen table.

Like someone worrying a the hole left behind by their missing tooth with their tongue she reached out to the little fern on the table that she had carefully cultivated for three years now. She burst into full out sobs that made it hard to bring air into her lungs when the plant withered as well. She was still cursed. There had been some strange fluke with Ned the pie maker before, but she still clearly killed everything she touched.

With a heavy heart, and puffy eyes that still wept Letty trudged off to bed and buried herself and her miseries under the thick downy comforter on her bed. She couldn't see any point in staying awake when she was having such a terribly dismal day. She couldn't see any point really in getting out of her bed for the foreseeable future really, but she hoped that thought was just melodramatic and would pass by morning.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Song for this chapter: The Winner Is from the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack**_

* * *

Ned was bothered by his interaction Letty from the moment he stepped out of her business. He was bothered by her tears, he was bothered by how she had tried to stop him from catching her, and the way she had all but thrown him from the shop. It was irksome because it made him feel as if he had done something wrong, but also because it reminded him of something. It reminded him of a time almost two years ago now, when Chuck had still been his and she had fallen during and investigation and he had to pull away rather than to catch her. The reaction had been instinctual, much as it appeared Letty's had been. Was there something about her that he didn't know?

She had been on his mind as he had taken Digby up and put him to rest next to his favorite chair up in his apartment. He continued to think of her when he returned to the Pie Hole to finish out serving everyone that came in for the night. He orbited around the establishment, making small talk with customers when it was required, but nothing substantial. He was unaware of Olive watching him and wondering what had happened to him while he had been out to put him in such a state of distraction.

"Ned what is going on in that head of yours?" Olive asked while the pair of them put chairs up onto the freshly cleaned tables.

"Hmm?" Ned said distractedly as he meandered toward the kitchen to see if there was any cleaning left to do.

"You left in dour spirits earlier and then came back ten minutes later the picture of distraction," she pointed out, joining him in the kitchen and untying the strings of her apron.

"Oh… nothing," he said, admitting to himself there was nothing left to do and beginning to remove his own apron.

"Come on Ned, you can talk to me," she said, offering him a soft pat on the arm as she passed him to hang her apron on a hook by the kitchen door. "You haven't been quite right since Digby passed. I know it was very sudden and the way it happened was unexpected but Digby was actually quiet old you know."

"Still… he's been with me for so long," he said, not quite meeting her gaze as he thought of the way that Digby had died.

His poor dog had startled at the sound of the bell over the door for reasons that Ned did not know, and had sprung up off the floor to run away from the sound. Ned had not been prepare for this, nor had he been prepared for Digby to jump into his lap seeking protection from whatever had spooked him. It had left him without time to prepare himself and Digby had nosed his bare hand falling dead in his lap instantly. Despite knowing it would not do anything he had touched him delicately several times, trying to bring him back, but Digby was now dead forever. It had broken his heart more than Chuck leaving him forever if he were being honest with himself.

"Ned?" Olive said, drawing his attention to the face that he was standing there staring at the wall with his sadness showing on his face. "You, Randy, and me could go out. Have some macaroni? Get your mind off it?"

"No, thank you Olive but it's okay," he said with a shake of the head forcing what he hoped was a believable smile on to his face. "Today was just a hard day because I got Digby back from the taxidermist, but I really am okay."

"You got him stuffed?" she said, and he tried not to cringe at the idea of turning Digby into a stuffed animal. "Randy and I wondered if you'd want to do that, but he said you were absolutely against it. Who'd you take him to anyway?"

"I hope Randy won't be offended," he said carefully. "I took him across the street to that woman named Letty. She did a lovely job. It just looks like he's curled up to take a nap."

"Oh Ned, that's so sweet," she said with a sad smile. "I do wish you weren't going home alone. Really, just come over to our place for macaroni. Randy won't care."

"Perhaps another night," he said with a soft shake of the head. "I'm beat and want to go straight to bed. I'll see you tomorrow yeah?"

"No, I'm sorry but we leave for our second honeymoon tomorrow remember?" she said, looking for all the world like she wanted to cancel to look after him, and he couldn't have that.

"Oh yes I completely forgot," he said, forcing that smile onto his face again. "Well you and Randy have an excellent trip and I will be here when you get back. Without all of the distraction written on my face as well."

"Alright Ned," she said as she pulled on her little green pea coat and made her way out of the Pie Hole.

Ned just watched her go and thought about how things had changed between them over the years. Once upon a time it had been quite awkward to interact with Olive because she had been in love with him and he hadn't been in love with anyone. Then she had been in love with him and he had been in love with Chuck. Then he was alone again, and he would never forget the day that in a panic Olive had asked him to pretend to be her fiancé to men she had apparently been lying to about her life.

He had only just been left by Chuck and he could not bring himself to do it. It had been a painful turning point in their relationship. He hurt her badly and embarrassed her, but ultimately it had been for the better as it had opened her eyes to Randy Mann the taxidermist that had a crush of his own. So now they were Ned who had no one to love and Randy and Olive still as in love today as they had been the day they had gotten married a year ago.

He suspected that Olive would leave the Pie Hole soon, though he never mentioned it to her. She had grown much happier than she had ever been since marrying Randy and that had allowed her to explore her own passions. One of those seemed to be Macaroni, and he suspected that she would end up opening her own restaurant to serve all of the different kinds of macaroni she could make. He would miss her when she went, but he would be happy for her as well. But when she went he would really be alone, that thought simultaneously made him sad and relieved him.

He was thinking about how Letty must also be very alone if she was so startled by touch as he locked up the Pie Hole from the outside. He turned, ready to head up to his apartment through the side stairwell and found himself face to face with Emerson. He hadn't seen him in at least a year, and not for longer than a few minutes since the day after Chuck left when he swore he would never touch a dead thing again. His mind wandered to Digby and why he had made that promise as he looked at the private detective.

"Hello Emerson," he said as he shoved his hands into his pockets to hide them from the chill of winter air as well as his unexpected companion.

"Ned," he said with a stiff nod. "I thought you'd still be open. Came by for a bit of Rhubarb and conversation."

"You haven't come by for pie in a very long time," he said carefully. "Pie is all done for the night, but I could oblige some conversation if you'd like. Unless of course you've come to talk about a case."

There was a long pause and Ned nodded with understanding as a sense of weariness overtook him. He felt himself grow smaller as he folded in on himself like he was used to doing around Chuck who he could not help but associate with Emerson. He took one long stride to put him closer to the door that hid the stairs leading up to his apartment and to signal to the private eye that he only had a few seconds left to talk.

"It's a tough case," he said quickly to Ned's back. "I've exhausted all of the avenues I can think of and it's forcing me to spend more time away from my daughter than I 'd like."

Ned had long since moved beyond being tempted to get back into the business, but that didn't mean that he wanted to be harsh to Emerson Cod. He paused with his hand on the door as he tried to think of how to let him down gently. He did hate to think of him missing more time with a daughter that he had waited so long to have live with him, but still Ned did not want to touch any more dead things.

"You could probably use this as a learning opportunity for your daughter," he said, suddenly aware of the fact that he had no idea what her name was. "You can teach her either about perseverance in the face of adversity or you can teach her about knowing where the limit is and how to say enough is enough."

"I'd rather teach my girl how to make a dollar," he said with a shrug.

"But an honest dollar right?" Ned said, looking at him over his shoulder as he opened the door. "Not one you have to cheat to get."

Emerson didn't seem to have a response to that so Ned took it as his opportunity to leave. He stepped into the stairwell and gently closed the door behind him. It still seemed like he heard a heavy deadbolt falling into place to lock Emerson away from him. He climbed slowly up the stairs to his apartment and his mind lingered in the space between memories of his gift that he thought of as a curse and the girl he had met today.

Suddenly he thought of her behavior in an entirely different light, and he wondered if something like what he did happened when she touched people. Was that why she had seemed so adverse to touch? But Ned wasn't dead. She'd been surprised by that though hadn't she. What was it she had said? _"Y-your alive, but you touched me…"_

Was it possible that she did the opposite of what he did? Surely that couldn't be possible could it? No one could survive if everything they touched died. She would have been parentless almost instantly. She would starve to death wouldn't she? His mind wandered trying to think of something someone could eat if every thing that the touched died instantly when they touched it. He imagined some synthetic food substitute would have to be the case but he couldn't really think of something like that in existence. She had been awfully skinny though hadn't she? And it had hardly felt like he held anything in his arms at all when he caught her.

He resolved right then to try to get to know her better. Partially out of curiosity as to if his theory was correct, and partially out of sympathy for if he was right. He imagined she must be terribly isolated. He was also curious why her power hadn't worked on him, if she had one of course. Was he protected by his own power? His mind was still on her as he dressed for bed and he resolved to go see her the next day.

* * *

Despite leaving the Pie Hole closed past it's regular opening time he did not get a chance to see Letty the next day. Her business never opened and despite how many times he knocked at the door she did not come down to answer. Eventually he had to admit defeat and go open his own business for the day.

* * *

This pattern repeated for three days though he added the aspect of calling the number for Professional Taxidermy Services phone number. He got a message about the business being temporarily closed due to unforeseen circumstances and a promise to reopen as soon as possible. He began to worry if something had happened to her, or if he had been the unforeseen circumstance. He hoped that he was being too conceited and that he had not had such an impact on her as to force her to hide away from the world like this.

On the fourth day when he crossed the street he saw that there was an open sign in her window and he couldn't help but smile. Despite the fact that it was a surprisingly warm day for February he slid his leather gloves into place on his hands and tightened his scarf a bit around his throat so that all that remained exposed was his face and he pushed the door open to enter the shop.

He wasn't really surprised at all to see her bundled in a similar fashion where she sat behind her desk. Her clothing was a bit thinner, likely to accommodate that she was inside and likely to overheat if she wore all of her winter garb, but her skin was completely covered from her boot covered feet to her throat that was hidden by a pretty grey scarf. He wondered if it came in a set with the grey gloves had come with it in a set, but that thought quickly drifted away when he saw how startled her face looked. Her face was still easy to see despite the slight shadow cast by the hat wide brimmed hat she wore.

"N-ned," she stuttered. "I didn't expect to see you today."

He held his hands up in a supplicating gesture to show that he had gloves on. And then with a second thought he turned and flipped her sign around to say closed. He didn't want them to be interrupted while he had this conversation with her, but he hoped she would not somehow take that as a threatening gesture. He was quite aware of the face that he stood nearly a foot taller than her and had by default a look of being quite strong compared to her very slight frame.

"I don't know if this is wise," she said in a soft voice and he heard the sound of her chair moving back as he turned around.

He turned to see her lingering near a door that he suspected lead up to her apartment with her arms wrapped around her body so tightly that it looked like she was trying to hold herself together.

"No touching, I promise," he assured her and then he slid his own hands into the pockets of his coat. "I just want to talk to you about what happened last time I was here. Then if you want I will leave and not come back."

"Oh…" she said hesitantly, relaxing her stance just slightly but not moving from where she was standing like a bird perched and ready for flight. "Okay."

"You said something when I caught you and I've been thinking about it for a few days now," he began, watching her with a worried eye when he saw how hers seemed to bug out of her head. "You seemed terribly surprised by my touch, but also by the fact that I was still alive after it happened. I was wondering if perhaps people tended to die if you touched them before."

She stared at him and in her wide brown eyes he saw a plethora of emotions filter through. There was panic, fear, sadness, and for the briefest of seconds relief. He knew instinctually, without her speaking, that he was right, and he wondered if she had ever been able to talk to someone about this before. He suddenly felt very blessed for how many people he had actually been able to share his burden with over the years. He doubted she'd had that.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," she managed to choke out after a minute that was likely very painful for her.

"Perhaps you don't," he said carefully, weighing his next words carefully before saying them. "You see I thought about it after I left, and I wondered if I were a person that could kill with my touch what would I do? After a lot of thought I decided that I would likely become a taxidermist or maybe a mortician, because the dead would be the only people I could touch without consequence. I would withdraw from society, and I would keep as much of myself covered as I could manage to protect other people."

He watched her after saying that and she seemed torn somewhere between relief that he seemed to understand and terror that he had figured her out so quickly. She didn't seem at all capable of speech and he was reminded of the day that Emerson had witnessed him using his gift and had confronted him about it. He remembered how afraid he had been then and he felt for her. She must be terrified of what it could mean for anyone to know about what she could do. More afraid than he had been he would wager because of how badly her power could be received by others if they knew.

"I also imagined that I would be terribly alone," he said softly. "And sad."

"You're talking about magic," she finally managed to say, though her face still seemed frozen. "That isn't real."

"Oh I am not so sure about that," Ned said, taking a very small step toward her despite his promise to himself that he would not move away from the door. "You see I happen to know someone who cannot touch the dead. If he touches the dead they come back to life, which I suppose it not all that bad, but if he leaves them alive for more than sixty seconds then something else dies in his place. That thing, or person that he touched, he can never touch it again or he will kill it forever. He has to be careful about touch, much like yourself, though he does not have to fear touching the living. I imagine that if he knew of you he would suddenly feel very blessed where he had once felt cursed, and then he would feel such guilt for those thoughts."

She stared at him then with a thoughtful look on her face and he knew that she understood that he was talking about himself. He watched as whatever thoughts she was having played over her face taking her from her terrified state to something much more relaxed. He found himself releasing a relieved breath when her arms fell away from her torso and rested comfortably at her sides.

"I suppose that's why I could touch you then isn't it," she said in a much stronger voice than what she had used all day though it still sounded soft to his ears. He wondered how often she spoke out loud.

"Yes," he said softly as he pulled the glove off of his left hand and reached out to touch the stuffed bird that was perched on a tree that he suspected to be fake near the door.

For a second the bird moved, stretching its wings somewhat awkwardly, and opening it's mouth like it would sing a song, but then Ned touched it again and the bird no longer lived. He had learned on a case with Emerson that it was best not to un-dead a stuffed animal for very long as their second life was a painful one due to how they had been taken apart and put back together with fluffy stuffing inside of them. Instead he looked away from the bird and looked at Letty where she was watching with interest from across the room.

"That's much nicer than mine," she told him quietly as she removed her own glove and touched the potted plant on her desk and watched it wither and die beneath her hand. "I'd never tried touching something twice though."

She reached out and touched the potted plant again and they both watched as it sprung back to life, regaining its green color quickly and looking as if she never touched it. She wondered if she had ever done that in the past without knowing it, and Ned wondered if she did not have the same consequence that he did, or if she wouldn't be aware of it because after sixty seconds she would bring something back to life rather than killing it.

"I wonder if that means the plant is alive forever now?" he thought out loud.

"I don't know…" she whispered. "I've never touched something twice. At least I don't think I have…"

Ned watched as her eyes drifted up toward the ceiling and tracked something that was surely a memory. He could not read her mind, but he was suddenly quite sure that she was thinking of something or someone she might have touched twice. If he could read her mind he would know she was thinking about her own mother. She was remembering how her mother had never seemed to get sick or to age. She remembered how her mother seemed able to touch her at all times without something bad happening even though no one else could. She had always thought it was because her mother was secretly like her, despite her frustrations with Letty's troubles, but now she wondered if it was because she was technically a part of the dead things that Letty could touch.

"I think I may have touched my mom twice," she whispered after a long time and Ned felt drilled down to the floor. "I haven't seen her since she left me when I graduated, but she never aged. She never got ill. She never changed from how she was when I was very small."

"I touched my childhood sweetheart once," Ned found himself confessing. "So now that she's left me she exists in an immortal state as well. Much like her father who I also woke from the dead. They travel together around the world now."

Ned spoke as if there was nothing strange or upsetting about what he'd said, but Letty knew better. The tiny quirk in his eyebrow that he quickly hid spoke of how much he was bothered by what had happened. She wondered if he still loved the girl and that was why it was upsetting. Or if he was bothered by sending two people who ought to be dead out into the world in a state where they would likely never die. Or perhaps it was something else, she wasn't sure, but she didn't feel it right to ask. So she just looked at him as he shoved his hands further into his pockets and hunched down on himself once more.

"We are a strange pair aren't we?" she said with a sad laugh. "I'm glad to know there is someone at least a little like me out there though. It makes me feel less… I don't know, but less of it."

"Lonely," he said quietly, and it was like an answer to her unasked question as well as a confession.

"Lonely," she said with a small nod.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Song for this chapter: We Are Going To Be Friends by The White Stripes**_

* * *

Letty was shut up in her little shop hard at work attaching a freshly repaired wing to the falcon that had been sent to her by a distraught hunter. It was a strange mix of her two types of clients. The man was a hunter, but this was not an animal he had hunted, but rather one he had hunted with. It was something more than a pet but something slightly less than a friend. It did not affect her in the way Digby had, but she did feel for the man who had sent her this bird.

She would have liked to ignore the bell on her door that rang while she was working, but she had to look up knowing that it meant someone had entered her shop. She could not afford to be distracted while a living thing was nearby. Especially since she was not wearing gloves today. It had been nice to enjoy the feeling of something organic under her hands for a moment while she touched the falcon's feathers. She reached discreetly for a pair of gloves while raising her eyes to see who had come in.

"Oh hello Ned," she said with a smile and with a deep breath to calm her nerves she refrained from putting her gloves on.

"I'm glad you're still downstairs," he said by way of greeting as he came fully into the shop and she saw that he was carrying a pie box. "I just closed up shop and I thought I'd see if you wanted to have some pie, but I didn't know how I'd reach you if you'd gone up for the night."

"Is it that late?" she said, rolling her long sleeve back to reveal a watch and checking the time. "Oh wow it's gotten on hasn't it? I hadn't realized."

"Time flies when you're doing what you love," Ned said with a shrug as he gently closed the door and flipped her sign around to close as was becoming habit for him. "I get lost in my baking all the time. I brought a Dutch apple if you'd like a bit."

"Oh I couldn't," Letty said with a dismissive wave. "I think I'd like some company though… would you eat your pie in my kitchen? For a little while?"

"I'd like that," he said with a smile stepping forward with care when she rose from her desk chair.

Letty appreciated that he never came too close or approached too quickly, but she wondered what he thought about her when taking such painstaking measures. Did he think her very strange? She hoped that he did not, but she couldn't imagine it would not seem weird to someone how very adverse to touch that she was. She tried to push those worrisome thoughts out of her mind as she opened the door that lead up to her apartment.

"Oh, could you turn the lock on the shop door?" she asked, and again she hoped he didn't think on the fact that she asked this to avoid walking too close to him in order to do it herself.

Letty picked her way carefully up the staircase and it occurred to her that she had never in her invited a friend into her home like this. She'd not really had a friend in order to do so. She was struck suddenly by the memory of inviting Mattie to her home many years ago and it made her terribly sad. She hated the thought of always being sad around Ned so she quickly pushed those thoughts away and instead listened to the sound of his feet on the stairs behind her.

"I apologize for the mess," she said over her shoulder as she opened the door that would lead into her living room. "I haven't had a visitor in well… never. So my home looks very… lived in."

Ned prepared himself to look pleasant while stepping into a terribly messy house, wondering in fact if Letty would be a hoarder, but he was quite surprised when he finally crested the top of the stairs and saw what she thought of as a mess. Other than a hat sitting on the back of a chair, a blanket draped over said chair, and what looked like a full tea cup on the coffee table the room was spotless. She had many books and all of them were neatly tucked away on shelves. There were green and vibrant plants everywhere, but they were placed in neat and orderly ways, and did not hang out into the walkways where they might brush against something. Ned was sure this was because she would not want to risk touching the plants in distraction.

"If you think this is messy you ought not to visit my place," he said with a crooked grin that immediately brought forth a small smile on Letty's face.

"I think I have a plate somewhere that you can eat your pie off of," she said as she led him into a kitchen so small it seemed silly to call it that.

He was surprised to see that when she opened cabinets in search of the plate they were not filled in the way a person might expect. One was empty save for a box of tea and a jar of honey. The next was filled with silver foil packets that had labels to small for him to know what they were and three bags of sugar. The third he thought at first was entirely empty but then he realized that there was on small plate and an equally small spoon in there. She took both out and turned to face him with a triumphant smile.

"I knew I had something somewhere," she chirped as she set them down on the table for him.

"Why don't you have any other dishes?" Ned asked as he set the box down on the table and pulled out the chair in front of him, thankful that she had two when she hadn't ever needed one before.

"Well I don't really need them do I?" she said carefully as she gently closed the cabinet. "Would you like a soda Ned? I have a lot to choose from. Do you like lemon lime or ones with cherry flavor, or just plain cola?"

"Oh I don't really drink soda," he said gently as he opened the pie box and breathed in the smell of the freshly baked pie with a smile. "They have too many artificial flavors."

"Yes they do," she said offering him a beaming smile as she took a lemon lime soda from the fridge. "All created with chemicals that don't spoil the moment they touch my tongue. I love soda."

"Oh," he said as if something had just occurred to him. "Of course. I didn't think. Goodness Letty what do you even eat? You do eat don't you? I mean you are very small, but you'd have to eat something to stay alive."

"I have a very limited diet," she shrugged. "It's pretty well all full of chemicals so I will spare you the list. I can have sugar though, that doesn't seem to go bad."

"You must drink a lot of water," said distractedly as he stared at the pie, wondering how he was going to get a piece of pie without a serving speen before ultimately settling for just eating out of the pie pan and then thinking about how he tended to drink a lot of water if he didn't have time to eat.

"Ah yes… I do, but its not very pleasant," she said as she popped the top on her soda and joined him at the table. "The human body needs water to survive though. So I endure."

"Does water spoil as well when you touch it?" he asked, confused.

"Not like food does," she explained carefully. "But it goes from something fresh to something stagnant. It has a poor taste, and it tends to unsettle my stomach, but it doesn't make me violently ill like say milk would."

Ned did not know what to say to that. He was suddenly feeling very foolish for bringing a pie over. He wondered if he ought to leave.

"I do like the smell of milk though," she said with a smile before taking a sip of her soda. "Especially if you put a dash of it into a cup of tea with honey. Oh and you're pie smells absolutely divine. Did you put cheese in the crust?"

"Your sense of smell is quite good," he said with a smile, wishing he could offer her a bite of pie. "There is a bit of gouda in the crust. It's something I learned from Ch-an old friend. I admit I feel very badly about having brought the pie now. I could run it back to the shop and we could just talk or something."

"Oh no please don't. It smells so wonderful," she said, offering him another one of those bright smiles that seemed to light up her entire being. "I'll eat something too if that will make you feel better. You have to promise to pretend you don't think it's weird though."

"I promise," he said with a nod and she hopped up from the table again.

Ned watched her pull one of those mysterious little foil packets out of the cabinet and joined him at the table again. She carefully popped it open and then she stared at him rather than taking anything out of it.

"It's weird if you just watch me I think," she told him. "You should eat some pie."

"I will. It's just I'm really curious about what is in that little package," he said, dropping his eyes to the pie again so he would not appear to be staring. "Will you tell me if I promise not to watch you eat?"

"I don't care if you watch I suppose, as long as you're eating too," she said with a soft giggle. "They're grasshoppers by the way. I order them online. Not from the grocer, which is how I get the sodas as well as things that I don't eat but just smell. I get these from other countries. There are all sorts of options if you are willing to eat bugs. Though most people here would not be. I find them to be a tasty bit of protein though. I'm rambling, but you could try one if you'd like."

"What do they taste like?" he asked with a curious tweak of his brow.

"Like grasshoppers?" she said with a funny little smile. "Its hard to compare it because food all tastes so rotten to me. They kind of taste the way that olive oil smells? But with like something crispy to it. It's hard to explain."


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/n: I know that was a weird place to break but I wanted to switched to a different song. Poor excuse I know.**_

* * *

_**Song for this chapter: Shatter Me by Lindsey Stirling featuring Lzzy Hale**_

* * *

"I'd like to try one," Ned said, his face still colored with interest and just a bit of confusion. "If that's alright?"

"If you can," Letty said as she pulled one out of the bag. "They are dead after all."

"I could just touch them twice," he pointed out with a crooked smile.

Letty thought she ought to laugh, or say something back to that but her world seemed to have tipped on its side. Could it really be that simple she wondered? She watched as he plucked the grasshopper from a hand that didn't really feel like it belonged to her anymore. For a second its legs twitched but then reached out with his finger and touched the bug once more. It stopped moving at once and was clearly dead again. It felt like a fissure had broken in the shiny façade of the life she had created for herself as she watched Ned eat the very much dead grasshopper.

"I see what you are saying about the flavor being difficult to explain," he said after he had swallowed. "Oh, I should have pulled the legs off."

She still said nothing as he tried to use his admittedly rather large hand to hide the fact that he was picking bug legs from his teeth. All she could think about was food. How many years now had she suffered through such a difficult diet only to now discover what she could have been doing? She could just touch the food a second time to eat it couldn't she? She suddenly found that she very much wanted to try it, even if the very thought shattered everything she had ever thought about food and how to approach it. She was both excited and afraid.

"Could I try a bit of pie?" she asked in a whisper soft voice that he almost could not hear.

"I thought you couldn't…" he said looking at her thoughtfully before the same thought occurred to him. "Oh of course."

Ned pushed the pie over to her and then with a crooked smile handed her the spoon he had been using as well. She liked how it still felt slightly warm from being in his grasp but she had to get up from the table to quickly wash it off. She wondered if she ought to buy more silverware as she shook the water droplets off of the now clean spoon and returned to the table.

Letty was actually afraid to try the pie. After so many years of a diet that was simultaneously simplistic and complicated she was not sure how to handle something as complex as a pie. There were so many ingredients in it that could die or rot at her touch, and yet she had seen people enjoy pie on television. She knew it must taste good. Ned certainly seemed to enjoy pie. It was the thought of Ned and the way he was watching her with such anticipation that made her take a seat at the table and pull the barely touched pie over to herself.

She made sure not to touch the pie with her skin at all as she carefully carved out a small piece with the spoon in her hand. For a moment she just enjoyed the aesthetic of it sitting there on the spoon with a bit of apple and the viscous sugary filling that held it suspended between two layers of pie crust. Really pie was a work of art in her opinion. She took a deep breath to steady herself and with her free hand she reached out and she touched the spoonful of pie, making certain to bring her skin into contact with each element. It saddened her to see it all darken and go wonky but it was not a sight she was unfamiliar with. She noted that it didn't seem to bother Ned.

Instead he watched with open fascination as she reached out to touch the pie a second time. Like film rewinding itself the pie turned back to the lively and beautiful state it had been in before her touch. A small smile tugged at her lips at the realization that she could now put this pie in her mouth and she would not be surprised by the rancid taste of it like so many food of the past. She took another deep breath and then she put the spoonful of pie in her mouth.

It was not like anything she had ever experienced. She felt instantly that she could understand Ned's opinion on artificial flavors. They were nothing compared to the explosion of flavor on her tongue and the warmth it brought with it. The pie itself was warm of course, but it was the sense of home and belonging that came with the taste of pie that shook the foundation of her world. It wasn't that there was apple or sugar or something else that she was unable to define layered beneath the buttery and flaky crust with just a hint of cheese that changed everything for her. Though admittedly all of those things were fantastic. It was the fact that she was eating food made by another person specifically for sharing with her. It was something she could not ever remember experiencing. Her meals had always been separate, even with her mother. It had never been a meal shared as a sense of communion between two people. Instead it had been an agonizing experiment in whether or not this next bite would make her stomach turn or worse.

She could not help it, she began to cry as she chewed and then swallowed the perfect bite of pie. Her eyes drifted closed for a moment, tears still spilling down her cheeks, as she simply enjoyed the sensation of something substantial traveling from her mouth to her stomach. She operated on autopilot as she opened her eyes once more and scooped out another piece of pie. She didn't care that her hand became even stickier as she touched this bite as well, all she cared about was watching it go from fresh, to dead, to alive again, and then she shoveled it into her mouth with a slight huff.

"I don't think one of my pies has ever made someone cry before," Ned said very quickly. "But I must admit I have never in my life been so happy to see someone eat even a bite of one."

Letty had been so focused on this singular experience that she had completely forgotten that she had an audience. She dropped the spoon onto the table and reached up with her hand that was not covered in pie filling and crust flakes in an attempt to wipe her tears away. Her heart lurched in her chest however when Ned reached across her small table to grab that wrist and stop her hand and pull it away from her face.

"Please eat more pie," he said, his brow slightly knit with concern and causing her to wonder what he was thinking. "Allow me."

First he slid the spoon into her hand and she was extremely aware of the way the backs of his fingers grazed her palm before his hand disappeared. Her hand closed more tightly around the spoon as she wondered what it would be like to be so casual about touch. She did not get much chance to think about it however before his fingers swiped lightly over her cheek to wipe her tears away. It was shocking, and she realized her face had not been touched at all in over ten years at the same time that she was struck by how comforting his delicate gesture was. She was torn between wanting to lean into his touch and to shrink away. She simply remained frozen in place while he wiped tears from the other side of her face and then released a shaking breath as he leaned back in his chair once more.

"This is amazing," she said in that same nearly gone voice as she dipped the spoon back into the pie. She wasn't entirely sure if she was talking about the pie or this friend that had crash landed into her life and seemed to actually care about her well being.

"It's the cheese," Ned said with a crooked smile before he broke off a piece of the crust on the side of the pie closest to him and tossed it into his mouth.

"You know I wasn't even hungry before, but now I feel suddenly ravenous," Letty said as she gained some volume back in her voice. "What have you done to me Ned the pie maker?"

"Something I intend to do quite often from now on," he chirped, that same crooked smile never leaving his face. "Feed you. You look like you've been dying for a real meal for far too long."

"Thirty years too long," she mumbled before putting another bite of the alive-again pie in her mouth.

Her math was nearly right. It had been thirty years four months one week three days nineteen hours and twenty minutes too long of a wait for Letty the taxidermist to experience the joy of a well-made bit of food. Ned, at exactly the same age as her, had not realized until just this moment that there had been a piece missing from his life. He was so excited to have befriended this woman that appeared to be the other side of his coin that he hardly knew what to do with himself. He wanted both to sit her watching her eat his pie, and to run over to his house and find something else to cook for her. He did not like how it seemed that one large gust of wind could actually break her in half.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Song for this chapter: Stand By Me by Ben E. King**_

* * *

Ned had stayed for the event of Letty eating that entire pie, as well as for the unfortunate event of her becoming ill after having done so. He had to leave shortly to run down to the corner drug store to get her a bottle of stomach medicine, despite her somewhat pained proclamation that it wasn't that big of a deal she was used to having her stomach hurt. He had stayed through the vomiting, despite her protests, and only finally left when she was safely tucked away in bed to sleep the rest of her illness away. He had felt guilty, but at the same time he had understood that Letty was not sick because of his pie, but because of how much she had eaten and how rich it was in comparison to anything she had ever eaten before.

It was because of that Ned found himself in his kitchen after business had closed for the Pie Hole making a plain chicken noodle soup despite the fact that he did not particularly enjoy eating it. It was complex in comparison to anything she had been able to eat her entire life, but it was simple in comparison to all other foods really. He had only combined chicken broth and store bought rice noodles. After putting in careful effort he poured it from the pan into a thermos and he made his way across the street to see Letty once more.

He supposed that he should not be all that surprised to find himself standing on the sidewalk by her door with only the thermos of soup in his hand for company. He shook his head and leaned against the wall with the soup in his hand while he thought about the situation he found himself in. Oddly enough for the first time in a very long time he thought of Chuck in a fond light and wondered if he ought to take a look through her books and see if there was something that could help him. He didn't know for certain what it had been but he was sure that he had overwhelmed her in some way. Was it the food? Was it just his company after so long being alone?

Ned kicked off the wall and took his soup back to the apartments above his business. Instead of going in to his own apartment his fingers sought out the key on his key ring that would let him in to what he still thought of as Chuck's apartment even though Olive had lived in it for a few months after she had gone. He unlocked the door and stepped inside with his eyes immediately going to the overloaded bookshelves.

He knew that the majority of her books had been fiction, but if memory served there was a section of them that were nonfiction. In fact he was fairly certain that she had a psychology book. He went to the shelf and immediately began looking through everything at once amused by how very Chuck it was and irritated that there did not seem to be any order to it. If this were a bookshelf in his house he would have been able to find the book immediately. Instead he had to look at each and every title until he finally found the book on human psychology.

With his new reading material in hand he locked up the apartment and returned to his own. It crossed his mind that maybe he ought to just get rid of the additional apartment already. He didn't need it, and he wasn't sure he needed the girl who used to live in it anymore. Why was he still holding on to her apartment? He pushed those thoughts from his head however and kicked his shoes off and settled into the chair with a Digby that would never move again at his feet.

He sat the thermos of soup down on the table with thoughts of trying to take it to Letty again later and he cracked open the book. Rather than reading the entire book straight off he flipped to the appendices and looked for anything that might relate to Letty. Frankly there were a lot of options that he thought could apply but he decided to start with isolation.

As he read the words he realized that he already knew some of this information. He understood without reading that isolation would have an emotional impact on a person. He understood that it would eventually cause a person to withdraw or to give up. He even understood that it might make it difficult to understand the emotions or thoughts other people were having.

It hadn't occurred to him until reading in this book that it also meant absolute isolation from touch. Intellectually he already knew that Letty didn't touch people, but he hadn't connected with what that meant for her emotionally. He flipped back to the appendices again until he found the page for touch. He absorbed what touch meant to the human psyche with a fervor, and again he felt as if he should have known it already.

The realization of his error was ground shaking for him. Letty had been deprived of touch at the very least since she came of age, and he had been absolutely casual about it with her. In fact he had been a bit forward when it was taken into consideration how easily he had touched her face. It hadn't felt like an intimate touch to him. He had just wanted her to keep eating the pie and understood that the tears on her face were upsetting to her. It had to have been terribly intimate for her though. He had clearly overwhelmed her, but he may have even made her terribly uncomfortable. What if she thought he had been coming on to her?

Ned set the book aside and lurched over toward the side table for his phone. He thought to question himself on when he had memorized the number to her shop, but he plugged it into the phone none-the-less. It rang and rang and she did not pick up. He was about to give up entirely when her voicemail kicked on.

"Professional Taxidermy Services please leave your name and number after the beep," her soft voice instructed before there was a high-pitched beep.

"Letty it's Ned," he said quickly. "I know you probably don't want to talk to me. The pie thing wasn't well thought out and I'm sure I overwhelmed you. It wasn't my intention honestly. I really just want to be your friend—"

He stopped talking when he realized that the line had gone dead. The answering machine had cut him off. He set the phone down in the cradle and he considered whether or not he ought to call her back. On the one had there had been other things he wanted to say, but on the other he didn't want to further overwhelm her by becoming some sort of phone stalker. It had been ages but he suddenly found himself wanting to talk to Emerson about what to do about a girl.

Instead of calling Emerson, or calling Letty again, he allowed the phone to remain in the cradle. He picked up the thermos of soup and put it away in the fridge in the kitchen, and then he made his way to his bedroom. His mind was flying far too quickly, but he resolved to do nothing more today. He would sleep, and tomorrow he would try to figure out the extent of the damage he had done and repair it.

* * *

Letty listened to his message several times the next morning. She agreed with him and his usage of the world overwhelmed, but she was terribly relieved to hear his words. After he had left she had begun to worry if there was something he was trying to get from her. Why else would he be so casual with touch around her? But he said that he just wanted to be her friend, and truthfully she wanted him as a friend. She wanted a friend, and there was a part of her that wanted more of his touch but that part scared her.

Ultimately she decided that her fear of touch was outweighed, at least for the moment, by her desire for his friendship. So despite the fact that the phone in her shop had never once been used for personal use she took note of his phone number where it scrolled on the screen of the answering machine and she punched it in to the receiver. It rang twice before he picked up.

"Hello," a groggy voice that she hardly recognized as his answer.

"Hello," she said quietly as she looked at her watch and gasped. "I'm sorry. It was light out and I was awake, but I didn't actually check the time before calling."

"What time is it?" he asked, sounding marginally more awake and as if he had sat up.

"It's a little after five," she told him. "I'm sorry. I'll hang up and call back later."

"It's alright Letty," he said, and the softness of his voice kept her from hanging up. "I'm awake now, and I did want to talk to you. I take it you got my message?"

"I did," she sighed. "You were right too. It's just a lot to take in. Just food is a lot to take in, but food and a person is… well overwhelming was a good word to use."

"Well we can take baby steps if that's what you need," his deep voice offered over the phone. "Maybe we start over, and this time start out as friends that just talk on the phone. Or maybe as friends that talk on the phone and go grocery shopping together because we need to get some food in your house now."

"Oh I order all of that stuff online," she assured him with a light laugh. "I think I ought to order some more dishes now too."

"It might be a good idea to try going out to a shop though," he hedged.

"You being safe from my touch does not immediately protect other people," she said with a slight edge climbing into her voice. "I want to try being friends, but not at the expense of putting other people at risk."

"I'm sorry. That's fair," he said, backing off immediately. "What if I went and picked you up some dishes. Would that be an effective compromise?"

"If it will make you happy," she sighed. "I really should let you go though. There is still time for you to get a bit more sleep before you have to open the Pie Hole."

"Oh. Okay," he said quietly. "I'll bring the dishes by later. Goodbye Letty."

"Goodbye Ned," she said, and then she hung up the phone quickly.

Was it normal that her pulse would seem just a little bit quicker after a phone call? Or was that happening because of the way he tended to push her? He was a stressor that was certain, but was he completely wrong? It really wasn't entirely healthy to stay locked away in her apartment all the time. Could she compromise with him and go outside? She had enough gloves and scarves and hats to keep almost completely covered. Maybe if they went out when the shops were nearly closed? There'd be less people then wouldn't there?

Just the thought of doing that made her heart race and she shook her head and ascended the stairs back up to the safety of her apartment. In the wake of the phone call she felt that today's work could wait. She huddled back under the soft blankets of her bed and willed herself to calm. She wasn't sure if meeting Ned was a good or bad thing.

* * *

Ned half expected to be left standing outside again that night, but when the Pie Hole was closed and he knocked at her door with a brand new box of dishes tucked under his arm. He was pleasantly surprised when he heard a quiet click and the door opened. She was practically dressed for battle in the way that she had used clothing to cover everything but her face, but she was also standing within a few inches of actually being outside. He offered her a smile and moved the box to her hands so she could see it.

"A new set," he said with a smile. "It comes with a full setting for two people. I figured that would give you plenty to work with. It only occurred to me at the store that maybe I ought to get things for you to cook in."

"Oh I'm not ready for cooking just yet," she said as she reached out and took the box carefully from him. "How much do I owe you?"

"Don't worry about it," he said with a shake of his head. "It was hardly anything. Friends do things like that sometimes right? Olive tried to buy me a horse once. I'd say that is too much of an expense for a friendship though."

"A horse?" she laughed, and he was surprised to discover how much he liked to hear it, it was livelier than it had sounded over the phone. "I can't picture you on a horse."

"Neither can I," he said as he tucked his hands into his pockets. "I've never found much interest in the idea of riding a horse. Or horses in general. My only real interaction with them was on this one case that I worked with Emerson where the victims were jockeys."

"Case?" she asked, and then she surprised him by stepping forward.

He jumped back, quick to put distance between the two of them so he wouldn't overwhelm her again.

"Sorry I didn't mean to startle you," she said, putting her hands up in supplication. "I thought I should offer a compromise as well."

"What is that?" he asked quietly.

"I'm still not comfortable with the idea of going to a shop," she explained. "But I'm going to come outside even though its hours before when everyone will be in bed. I thought we could stand out here and talk or whatever, and that would be a good compromise. Maybe then I won't seem completely crazy to you."

"I don't think you're crazy Letty," he said as he watched her step fully outside and close the door behind her.

"Well an oddity then?" she said with a shrug. "I would like to be your friend, but doing the things you probably do with your other friends might not be something I can ever do. I don't want to run you off, so compromise."

"I don't really have intentions to run," he said softly. "And I don't have a lot of other friends. I still have Olive, and I suppose by association her husband Randy but we don't spend a lot of time together outside of the Pie Hole."

"At your other job then?" she pressed. "Where you work cases? Are you a cop, or a private investigator?"

"Oh, I don't really do that anymore," he explained with a shake of the head. "I used to work with this P.I. named Emerson Cod. I helped him to solve crimes by waking the dead long enough for them to tell us who had killed them. I know it was cheating, but we did wrap up a lot of mysteries."

"Is it cheating?" she asked, tilting her head to the side until it risked causing her hat to fall off and she righted her self immediately with a black gloved hand on top of her floppy knit cap. "You brought people closure because you had a g-gift. I would have liked to be able to do that all these years actually. Rather than being the one who kills people. Why did you stop?"

Ned was quiet for a bit after that. He just looked at her, but his blue eyes were full of thought as his brow knit together just slightly. She had to admit to herself that there was something inherently beautiful about his face in that moment, but she wasn't ever going to say something like that out loud. Instead she just waited for him to decide on what he wanted to say.

"After Chuck left… I didn't think of this as a gift anymore I thought of it as a curse," he explained. "I stopped using it altogether for a time, and no longer working cases was a part of that. I've grown less sensitive over time and I can at least use it on fruit like I used to for the pies. And that bird in your shop of course. I regret that one though."

"Why?" she asked, and he thought she might think he regretted revealing himself to her so he hurried to correct her.

"I don't think it's right to do that to an animal that's been stuffed," he told her. "I think it must be painful for them. Everything that made them what they are is gone really. It seems like a joke to bring them back to life."

"I hadn't thought of it like that," she said, and she hugged her arms around herself as she shifted back and forth on the balls of her feet. "Do they… do they stay exactly as they were when you touched them then? They don't just return to what they were like when they were alive?"

"No. I wish they did," he sighed. "I brought Chuck's dad back for her… he'd been dead for about nineteen years… and he looked it. We had to keep him wrapped up in bandages."

"You kept him alive too?" she asked softly and he thought she looked sad.

"It was not my intention," Ned said, and his eyes drifted away from her to look at his shoes. "That was the beginning of the end of Chuck and me I'd say. She tricked me into keeping her father alive, which killed another man who was in the cemetery, and then just a few days later she left with him and I haven't seen her again. I suppose I shouldn't hold it against her. I was the one who killed her father after all."

"How," she whispered.

"I brought my mom back when I was nine," he explained. "It was before I understood this gift. I didn't know there were consequences… but to keep my mom I killed her father. Later that night my mother touched me again and I lost her too. It was not the best day."

"No I don't imagine it would be," she said, and then she was wracked with a shudder.

"Are you cold?" he asked, immediately reaching to pull his jacket off.

"I'm not used to being outside for this long," she said with a shake of her head. "I probably should have worn another sweater."

Ned was so quick with his movement that she really couldn't protest. He whipped his jacket off and swung it around her shoulders in one swift movement. She immediately stopped shivering and her nose was filled with the homey smell of freshly baked pie that radiated off of his jacket in waves. Her shoulders, which she hadn't realized until then had been tucked all the way up to her ears, fell down and she relaxed into the sense of warmth that surrounded her.

"Thank you," she sighed. "That's so much better."

"Anytime," Ned said with a nod.

"It should be my turn to make you feel better," she said with a nod. "That's how friendship works right? But I have no idea how to fix this Chuck situation you've told me about. Or the one with your mother."

"Friendship isn't quid pro quo," he laughed and his eyes met hers fully once more. "And 'the Chuck thing' as you put it is in the past. There is no need to do anything."

"So you're going back to working cases then?" she asked him.

"Oh, no I don't think so," he said with a shake of the head.

"You were doing something really good for others," she pointed out gently. "I think it'd probably be good for you to get back at it, but it would also be good for other people."

"It's something to think about I suppose," he nodded. "Perhaps we can come up with a deal. I'll work a case after you and I go to the beach together, in broad daylight with other people around."

"So never then," she said and she trilled a laugh. "Your jacket is making me hungry. It smells like pie you know? I've got some freshly ordered apples upstairs if you'd like one."

"I think I'll pass for tonight," he said, worried that he would inadvertently overwhelm her by coming inside again so soon. "Besides, I've been craving a veggie burger so I think I'm going to go over to the diner around the corner and get one."

"Well here, take your jacket for the walk," she said and she quickly peeled it back off her shoulders to give to him. "I'll talk to you later."

She didn't wait for him to respond before she threw her shop door open once more and retreated inside. He called a goodbye at the closed door and threw his jacket back over his own shoulders before walking away. Today they had made some progress and he was happy with that even if he would be going to yet another dinner all by his lonesome.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Song for this chapter: Esquadros by Adriana Calcanhoto**_

* * *

Ned began to carefully try and pull Letty out from behind the many walls that hid her from the world around her. He tried to keep everything simple, but it all had major impacts on her mental state even if he was not aware of it. He did not realize that in the two weeks that he spent just giving her a phone call to chat here of there, or dropping by with some food morsel in hand to visit her every now and then that he was changing her so much.

Letty was aware though. She noticed that she suddenly felt so much hungrier than she ever had in her life. Not only did she suddenly need to have three full meals a day, but she sometimes wanted more than that. It was a scary thing to confront this suddenly rabid hunger, but she was managing it as best she could. She noticed that the delivery boy for the grocery gave her a look the first time he had to bring her an order that was more than three times larger than anything she had ever ordered.

"You look very pensive," Ned said as he came into the shop, and Letty knew that she had looked at him the second he entered due to the bell so she wondered if he'd noticed that look on her face through the window before entering.

"I was just thinking about my grocery order," she said with a shrug as she set aside her work tools and began to completely ignore the badger she was reassembling on her desk.

"I'm surprised you are thinking about food while you work with animals," he said, and immediately blushed, she wondered if he was embarrassed by implying that he couldn't really stomach her line of work.

"Would you be turned off from your lunch if you had to eat it in your kitchen amongst the dead fruit?" she asked him with a quirked brow and he nodded she saw the understanding settle on him. "But I wasn't thinking about food so it's a moot point really."

"But you said…" he trailed off.

"That I was thinking about my order," she pointed out. "Really that wasn't fair either though. I was thinking about the delivery boy, and how he seemed very judgmental over the growth in my order. It's silly but I feel like he was looking at me like some sort of pig for suddenly ordering so much more food."

"I hope he was not such an idiot," Ned said and she was surprised to see the look of disapproval in his eyes before his face brightened once more. "You are ordering more. Tell me what you've tried this time!"

"I got a potato this time with all of the fruits I've been getting," she said with a smile, honestly excited that he wanted to talk about her groceries as much as she did. "I thought I would try cutting it up and boiling it to make mashed potatoes of sorts. I don't think I'll add the butter or anything just yet because that seems heavy, but some salt I think, ooh and maybe a bit of the other new thing I ordered. Garlic."

"Garlic can be fantastic frankly," Ned said with an approving and endearing smile. "I wanted to try making you a new desert as well if you are feeling particularly adventurous this evening."

"You have my attention," Letty said as she folded her hands in her lap.

"I was thinking a simple fake apple crumble," he explained. "We could bake a few apple slices with cinnamon on them as well as some granola and simple syrup. The simple syrup being the most complex item in the dish."

"That's not too many ingredients," she said with a nod. "If we made it together I could show you something I've learned while preparing my own food."

"What's that," he asked as she stood up from her desk and moved toward the door up to her apartment.

"If I touch all the ingredients before the thing is made I can eat it like a normal person," she said with a beaming smile over her shoulder as she started up the stairs and he began to follow. "Instead of looking like a toddler with dinner all over my hands."

"That is great," he said before he laughed. "Why didn't I think about that before. That's how I make the pies."

"Well you're kind of my opposite," she said with a shrug. "It made sense to do things the opposite way didn't it?"

The two of them entered her apartment and he immediately noticed that it smelled different. He wasn't quite sure, but he'd guess she had made toast at some point as well as heating up some sort of fruit… a pear maybe? He was ridiculously pleased to smell evidence of her experimentation with food.

"So I don't know how to make this syrup, but maybe I have all of the ingredients," she said as she started throwing open cupboards that used to be barren and revealing all sorts of different foods. "I do have apples and granola though."

"We just need sugar," he laughed, knowing she'd have that because she could eat that before. "Do you have cinnamon though?"

"Oh… shoot," she said as she looked through her cabinets. "I don't."

He thought for a moment and wondered if two weeks time was enough of a wait to give another small push. He decided to take the risk and met her gaze. He was surprised to see her watching him so closely and he hoped his thoughts hadn't broadcasted over his face like they usually tended to do.

"What if we went over to my shop?" he asked. "I've got all of the ingredients, and I'm closed for the night so you shouldn't really run into people."

"I could probably do that," she said after short pause. "I just need to go change."

It was literally only then that he noticed what she was wearing. There were no gloves on her hands and her sleeves were only three quarters in length. How had he not noticed that so much of her skin was showing? He was even more surprised when she flounced off out of the room and he realized that she didn't have shoes or socks on either. In the grand scheme of things she was still mostly covered in her floor length skirt and the high-necked blouse she was wearing, but it was practically scandalous for her. She must have been feeling very confident today. That made Ned happy.

He was still happy to see her return covered though. He could hear the click of the boots she was now wearing on the floor before he saw her. She'd changed into a pair of jeans, and he wondered vaguely that made her feel more secure. She was also wearing a sweater and a jacket now in addition to gloves, scarf, and hat.

"There, now I can go," Letty said with a soft smile as she joined him. "I don't know if I should be nervous or excited. You know I've never been in a restaurant before."

That made him sad, but he offered her the best smile he could.

"You're going to love it," he said as he led the way back out of her apartment.

The two of them exited through the front of her shop, pausing only so she could lock up the door, and then they hurried across the street to the closed Pie Hole. He could tell that she felt exposed despite the fact that they were the only people on the street so he was quick to pull the pull his keys from his pocket. He didn't get the chance to put the key in the lock before the door opened and he panicked when presented with bubbly Olive in the doorway looking at Letty through the gap between his arm and his body.

"Ned you little sneak," Olive chirped. "I should have known you'd met someone when you were in such a rush to get out of here after work! And all those phone calls too. I've got to meet you."

And with that Olive had tried to pop out of the Pie Hole and grab Letty's arm. Ned moved quickly to put himself between Letty and Olive, wrapping an arm around Olive to stop her progress. Letty was so startled and in such a hurry to get away from Olive that she tripped over her feet trying to get away from her and fell down onto the sidewalk.

"Calm down Olive," Ned said tightly as he set her back inside the Pie Hole before turning to Letty, surprised to find her on the ground. "I thought you had gone home for the night."

"The floor cleaner took longer than expected," Olive said by way of explanation as she folder her arms tightly over her bright green dress. "What is up with you?"

"Are you okay?" he asked Letty as he reached out slowly and tentatively to offer her a hand in getting up. "I'm sorry, I really thought the shop was empty."

"It's okay," she said shakily as she put one gloved hand in his and let him help her up off the ground. "I think I'm okay."

When she was firmly on her own feet he released her hand and she immediately moved both of them behind her. He thought at first that she was just feeling overwhelmed but then he realized she was discretely trying to rub her backside. Had she injured herself when she fell?

"I think I better go home Ned," she told him a tight voice and before he could even try to argue the point she was running across the street and disappearing into her own shop once more.

"Olive," he sighed, turning to face the tiny woman standing dumb founded in the doorway of the Pie Hole looking confused at what had just taken place. "Do you know how hard to get her out of her apartment? That probably just set us back by at least a month. She just… can't handle your level of exuberance yet."

"I didn't mean anything by it honest," she said, looking hurt.

"I know you didn't," he said, shoving his own hands deep into his pockets and hunching his shoulders when he realized was hurting Olive too. "Its just she a bit of a shut in, and I promised her the shop would be empty. I'm pretty sure it's the only reason she agreed to come."

* * *

It had taken three days before she would even answer the phone when he called. They were back to the basics of just having telephone conversations for the basis of their friendship for another three days after that. Only then did she tentatively invite him over for tea the following evening.

After gently courting her favor once more for an additional week he decided to breach the subject of going outside again. While they sat together in her living room playing scrabble he took the risk.

"What if we went out and got some ice cream," he said casually, not taking his eyes off the board. "We could get it in a quart, that way we'd be serving it back here and you wouldn't have to worry about touching it in front of other people."

"Hmm," she said, tapping her lip as she stared at the board as well. "It's only six. Do you think that's late enough for people to be heading in for the night?"

"There could likely be some people out but it won't be crowds of people," he said with a shrug of his shoulders that he hoped would help her feel more comfortable. "I'll make sure no one touches you."

"Let me get a heavier jacket," she said in a resigned voice and he was honestly surprised she was agreeing.

He didn't comment on the fact that putting an addition jacket over the multiple layers she was wearing at the moment was likely to be much to warm on a nice April evening. He was very aware that the little comfort she'd had in uncovering a few inches of skin had been stolen away by the near miss with Olive and had taken to even wearing her gloves around him again.

She returned in her own version of battle armor and the pair of them made their way out of her apartment together. He kept a comfortable distance from her while they were inside, but as soon as they stepped out onto the sidewalk he was surprised to find her butted up against his side. He could feel the heat of her skin on through his own t-shirt and it actually overwhelmed him a bit.

When they had to cross the street to get to the little market with ice cream they were confronted with their first person out and about for the night and he was shocked that she put her hand in his and folded her free hand over her body while leaning into him. To the person passing them it was likely to look like the loving movements of a couple, and even though he knew she was folding in like that to protect the other person, he found that his heart fluttered just a bit.

The pair of them entered the market and he could practically hear her heart pick up in rhythm when they saw that there were still quite a few shoppers inside. He honestly contemplated just turning around and walking her back right then but they had already come so far. So he did the only thing he could think of, he released her gloved hand which he was pretending did not feel nice wrapped up in his own, and he wrapped his arm around her delicate shoulder so he could pull her against his body at a moment's notice if someone got to close. They would still look like a normal couple to anyone else.

"Like I said, I won't let anyone touch you I promise," he said, delicately not pointing out that he wasn't counting himself as part of anyone.

"Thank you," she said with a shaky voice and he wished that she weren't wearing a hat so he could see if her face looked as scared as her voice sounded.

They maneuvered their way to the ice cream freezer in a roundabout way to avoid all of the other patrons. Soon enough they were standing in front of all the different kinds shopping for the treat they wanted as if they were entirely normal. He pointed to mint chocolate chip, not saying out loud that it was his favorite, but she shook her head in denial. He decided he'd come back for that at some other point and instead pointed at a plain chocolate to see if that was what she wanted.

With another shake of the head she broke away from him for a moment and opened the next door over to pull out a box of fresh fruit popsicles. He couldn't help but smile at that. He'd worry that she thought he had a horrible sweet tooth that was ruining his diet if she wasn't so wrapped up in her own food choices. Her food intake had grown exponentially healthy now that she could eat regular food and she pretty much stuck to fruits and vegetables at all time. In hindsight he was surprised she agreed to go get ice cream at all.

"Those sound great," he said as she tucked herself back under his arm and he began to maneuver them back up to the front of the shop.

The actual transaction had the potential to be very awkward but he felt that it went well. She set the box on the counter and then backed up just a bit into him. He pulled out his wallet with the arm that wasn't around her and paid for the treat. He accepted it from the clerk who wisely hadn't tried to hand it to Letty, stowed his wallet away, and then carefully led them back out of the shop without getting close to anyone else in the shop.

He felt good about the trip as a whole until they exited the shop and she jerked out from under his arm and took off a clipped pace back toward her home. She barely missed getting hit by a car and he had to wait for said car to get out of the intersection before he could follow after her. She wasn't actually running so he caught up to her quickly enough but he could hear that her breathing sounded panicked so he didn't dare get to close.

She flew into her shop and he did get slight relief from the fact that she didn't just slam the door shut to keep him out. He joined her inside and he was saddened to see that she was folded in half with her head hanging down by her knees and her hat forgotten on the floor as she sucked in deep painful sounding breaths.

"Too much, too much," she murmured and he quickly shut the door so no one on the street could somehow see her go to pieces.

"Sit down on the floor," he instructed when he saw her wobbling in place.

"Good girl," he said when she complied. "Now put your head between your knees and try and take slower breaths. The dizziness will pass then."

It was quiet around them except for the sound of her breathing as he watched her inch back from the panic attack it looked like she'd been about to have. When he breathing had evened out she finally lifted her head up and it lanced somewhere in his chest to see tears sparkling in her eyes.

"I think I need to rest," she told him softly, her voice barely there. "Could you go home please?"

"Of course," he said quietly, delicately handing her the bag with popsicles in it while trying to make sure that he didn't brush her in anyway. "Here. You earned these."

She let out a painful laugh at that but she took the bag. He turned and quickly hurried out of her business pulling the door tightly closed behind him before hurrying over to the door that would let him up to his own apartment across the street. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so out of place in his own skin. He could however remember the last time he had wanted to go back in time and make a different choice and he was not at all thrilled to be thinking about Chuck at a time like this.


	8. Chapter 8

_**a/n: its short and doesn't cover much, but I was actually missing this story a bit and wanted to write something that advanced the storyline a bit even though I still have a lot of plotting left to do. no idea when I will get the next chapter up, so I apologize to anyone who might still be following this story :S**_

_**Song for this chapter: Recovery by James Arthur**_

-`-'-

Ned was prepared to not hear from Letty for a long time. He had gone with unanswered calls for a significant amount of time or much less than the mental break he had caused by taking her to the market place. So he did not try to call her the next morning. He decided to wait a full day before trying even that.

It was because of his silent internal analyzing and subsequent decision in part that he was beyond surprised to hear a quiet knock on the door to the Pie Hole just two minutes after closing up for the night. No matter what his blank mind might have come up with, he certainly wouldn't have expected to crack the door open and find a sheepish looking Letty teetering back and forth from one foot to the other and staring at him with big slightly watery eyes.

"Letty?" he coughed in surprise

"Can I come in?" she asked in a breathy voice. "There are still like three people out on this street tonight, and I didn't actually wear my scarf tonight.. and—"

"Of course, of course, come in," he said as he stepped aside and gestured for her to come into the restaurant. "I didn't call today because I thought you might like a bit of space."

"I was actually… well I came over because I wanted to apologize," she said as she wrapped her arms around herself flashing a bit of the bright pink gloves that were covering her hands before they were tucked behind her back and hidden by her black pea coat. "I didn't mean to freak out quite so much. It's just it was a lot… but I didn't want you to think that I was upset with you. I'm really glad you pushed me to do that. I haven't allowed myself to think I could successfully go to the market myself."

Ned found himself unable to come up with anything to say. He fought the urge to hug her that had bubbled up in his chest, certain that it would overwhelm her. Instead he wrapped his own hands together and squeezed them tightly to appease his need to touch her.

"Are you upset with me?" she asked softly.

"No of course not," he told her earnestly. "I actually thought that you were upset with me, and I was so happy to hear that I was wrong I very nearly pulled you into a hug. So the silence is me collecting myself, not a projection of negative feelings about you."

And once again Ned found himself surprised beyond anything he could be prepared for that day. Letty stepped forward and hesitantly but quickly wrapped her arms around him. He was momentarily startled by her slight weight leaning into his frame, but then he composed himself and carefully put his own arms around her shoulders. He refrained from squeezing, thinking he would scare her off, but then she turned to the side so the warm skin of her cheek was touching his t-shirt, sending warmth radiating through him and his arms seemed to take it upon themselves to pull her tighter with one traitorous had inching itself into her long dark hair.

"Thank you," Letty murmured into his shirt. "For really hugging me, for pushing me to do normal things, for not getting sick of my insanity."

"You aren't insane Letty," he whispered back, distracted from saying much else by how soft her hair was, and how much he found he wanted to do more than just share a friendly hug with her.

The realization that she wanted to be his friend and he wanted to kiss her was like having a bucket of ice dumped over his head and he found himself immediately backing out of their hug. He put what he hoped was a convincing smile on his face and immediately offer up an excuse about having to finish closing the shop so as not to hurt her feelings. He wasn't sure if she believed him, but there did not seem to be any sadness in his eyes so a tiny bit of tension relaxed out of his shoulders.

"I could help if you want," she said with a cheery smile. "I am very good at cleaning and organizing. Not that it isn't clean in here. Honestly this is such a nice restaurant Ned. Well I suppose I don't have the best frame of reference, what with how few I've been too… but I like the colors. It seems very homey."

"Pie is home," he said with a shrug. "Everyone should want to come home."

"Home," she said with a small smile. "It's certainly homier than my home. Maybe I will paint or something, bring some colors like this into my living room or my kitchen. Do you want to paint with me? I could order some paint tonight it would be here in a day or two. I'm sorry, I'm babbling."

"It's alright," Ned said, his earlier discomfort erased by how endearing he found her. "I would love to paint with you. I could even go get the pain for you so you don't have to place an extra order."

"Where would you go to get it?" she asked with a curious look on her face.

"There is a store not too far from here that sells just about everything, and they stay open fairly late," Ned explained as he resumed wiping down all of the tables. "I could pick up paint from their hardware section if you know what colors you want."

"Do they get a lot of shoppers in their late hours?" she asked.

"Honestly I don't shop their enough to be certain, but the last time I ran down there at this time of night to get some light bulbs I only saw the check out clerk in the store." he answered.

"Well… what if I went with you?" Letty suggested and he wondered who had replaced the girl from across the street with this bold new woman.

He didn't get a chance to even voice the question though. As he opened his mouth to speak the door creaked open and Johnson the floor cleaner let himself in, pulling his buffer behind him while he hummed along to the walkman he was listening to. Letty froze up and looked at the man and then Ned before backing herself up against the nearest table. Johnson didn't even seem to notice her as he set to work on cleaning the floors behind the counter first.

"On second though, maybe I ought to go home," she said, her voice an octave higher than it had been a second ago as she fought to remain calm. "I'd really like it if you would get some paint in these colors, and some day when you have time we could paint together. You could call me and tell me how much I owe you for the paint, but I'm not quite ready for another shop. I thought I was, but… well I'm feeling overwhelmed and I think it's best I go home before I turn into a blubbering mess again."

"I understand," he said with a soft smile. "Recognizing your limits is a good step too. I'll call you tomorrow okay?"

"Okay Ned," she said with a shaky smile of her own as she began edging toward the door. "I look forward to hearing from you."

He was proud to see that while she was alarmed she did not openly flee. She edged out of the Pie Hole and then walked over to her own residence in a relatively calm fashion. Her most anxious behavior was tucking her hands into the pockets of her coat, and frankly considering the cool temperatures outside that wasn't all that strange.


	9. Chapter 9

_**a/n: Short and Sweet; mostly just a chance to flex my writing muscles just a bit and to say Happy New **_**_Year _**

* * *

_**Song for this chapter: Everything Has Changed by Taylor Swift featuring Ed Sheeran**_

* * *

One adventure had turned into another, and so shortly after painting her living room and kitchen together the pair of them had ventured to a farmer's market together, quite early in the morning of course. They showed up just as the market was opening, so there would not be very many people there at all and they had purchased fresh supplies for their newest adventure of baking a pie together from scratch.

Ned had handled all of the supplies while they were at the market and their way back to the Pie Hole, which had in fact been closed for this momentous occasion. Once they were safely in what he had come to think of as their kitchen he handed the supplies they had purchased over to Letty while he procured aprons.

"I'm so excited to make my own dough," Letty chirped as she measured out the required flour into a pile on the counter like she'd seen Ned do the last time they'd baked together.

There was an easy atmosphere about the kitchen as Ned offered her a quick smile and began to prepare his own dough. He loved the quite humming sounds she made to herself as she worked, so he was more likely to be quite in the kitchen than not just to hear it. Today she was humming something that reminded him of a nursery rhyme his childhood but he couldn't quite place the words. The sun was still not fully risen so he thought they really ought to turn the lights on in the kitchen, but the orange light coming through the window and catching some of the flour that was hanging in the air about Letty painted such a pretty picture he couldn't bring himself to disturb it.

"You're getting flour on your face," she said with a smile as she looked up at him from across the work bench.

"Where?" he asked as he used the back of his wrist to try and wipe it off.

"Oh dear," she said with a tinkling laugh as she came around the table. "Hold on, you're making it much worse. Let me help."

Ned held still as she closed the distance between them by rounding the counter and reached out to wipe the flour from his face. He was much to focused on the feeling of her fingers on his cheek to really worry about whether she was fixing the flour issue or not. He hated to admit to himself that her touch made his heart flutter, because he figured it caused her palpations as well, but not in a blooming feeling sort of way.

At least he didn't think that was the case, until her fingers hesitantly drew across his bottom lip and his mouth opened slightly on it's own accord to release an inaudible breathy sigh. Letty let her eyes fall from his gaze to look at his mouth as she brushed her thumb over the lip again and he found he was entirely entranced.

"Would you mind it very much if I were to kiss you right now?" she asked, her shaky voice breaking the heady silence that had grown in the kitchen.

Ned couldn't think of anything to say. He wanted to say something poetic but he didn't have the words, so instead he just leaded down toward her effectively closing most of the distance between them. He stopped just an inch from her lips, leaving the last move to her as his answer to her question.

Letty did not disappoint him. She closed that small distance to press her lips against him and his senses went into overload trying to catalogue anything and everything. Her lips were pillow soft, and she was wear a fruit flavored lip balm, he suspected cherries, but there was just a hint of flour on her lips as well. He made note of how she was tentative at the first application of her lips, but when she tiled her head up just a bit to get a better angle her lips slipped over his causing his heart to skip in his chest and her to grow more bold. He was realizing that kissing may be his new favorite pass time as her fingers danced over his cheek and threaded into his hair and his own hands seemed to reach out on their own accord and pull her body flush against his before he tangled his own hands in her long locks.

Neither could be sure just how long they were in that moment, but they did eventually break apart to stare at one another from their now intimate positioning. Ned was thinking he had just won the lottery in the way her pale cheeks had flushed and her eyes seemed slightly dazed looking up at him. Letty was thinking that she must be the luckiest woman in the world if they brave and friendly man was actually returning the feelings that had slowly started growing in her in the last few weeks.

"That was…" Ned began before he realized that he still had no words.

Instead he tilted her head back just a little bit further and reclaimed her lips again. He brushed his lips over hers in several fleeting movements as he absorbed a feeling he had a hard time defining properly, but that made his head almost too fuzzy to think.

"Perfect," she whispered when he released her once more.

He was overwhelmed with the elation of the kiss, the emotion boiling up in him, and the absurdity of the realization that he'd just coated her hair in flour. He began to laugh a full belly laugh before throwing all caution to the wind, scooping her up in his embrace and spinning her around before he set her down on the counter so her face was almost completely level with his, though hers was tilted back in laughter and he found himself instead staring at the pale white column of her throat.

"Ned," say something, she said when her giggles were under control and she was meeting his gaze again.

"That was the single most glorious moment of my life," he said earnestly. "One I never dared dream could actually happen, and now I find I just want to repeat it again and again until I die."

"Oh Ned," she said softly as she reached out to successfully brush the flour from his cheek finally before planting a kiss where her fingers had just been. "Me too."


End file.
